Experience immigrant life at Gammelgården

Children experience an old-fashioned way to wash clothes at last year’s “Immigrant for a Day” celebration at Gammelgården Museum in Scandia.

Get your trunk and pack your metal farm tools (no wooden handles please—you can make new ones when you get to Amerika).

In Scandia, the first Swedish settlement in Minnesota, Gammelgården Museum preserves the story of coming to the New World. Visitors can experience daily life on the Old (Gammel) Small Farm (Gården) as the first Swedish immigrants did over 140 years ago.

This Sunday afternoon, learn what it was like to live in a log home that your family built, carry water, shell corn, and make butter. “Immigrant for Day,” a free event for all ages, will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 26. Parking is also free.

The Immigrant Hus and other historic buildings will be open. Gammelgården’s Junior Guides will lead guests in several “immigrant-inspired” activities throughout the afternoon. To make the day especially fun, guests are invited to join the Guides in dressing in pioneer costume.

It will be a busy afternoon, with school starting in the old church (Gammelkyrkan) and laundry to do at the farm house.

The Scandia Butik gift shop will be open in the Welcome House (Välkommen Hus), and local artists will present their paintings and photographs of local barns and farm life upstairs in the Passage Room. (If you can’t come Sunday, you can still see the Barn Anew exhibit through August.)

Gammelgården Museum is located in downtown Scandia, south of TH-97 at 20880 Olinda Tr.

For more information visit www.gammelgardenmuseum.org or call 651-433-5053. Learn about the artifacts on ookl.net.